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> "That piece of paper allows the largest aircraft since the ill-fated Hindenburg" We can't mention airships without mentioning the Hindenburg. This[1] was the

> "That piece of paper allows the largest aircraft since the ill-fated Hindenburg" We can't mention airships without mentioning the Hindenburg. This[1] was the cockpit of the Hindenburg's sister ship Graf Zeppelin, yep flying technology hasn't improved since then or anything. And Brin's airship isn't even Hydrogen lifted! [1] https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/news-photo/photograph-from-the-official-album-of-the-zeppelin-naval-news-photo/90744634 https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/news-photo/photograph-f...

JumpCrisscross 3y ago
What’s wrong with that cockpit?
- s_dev 3y ago
  Have you seen the cockpit of modern plane? The number of controls/instruments telling you about the status of the plane for instance is a big differentiator here. That is a major safety flag -- the pilot in that cockpit knows nothing really about the ship he is steering.
  - AlecSchueler 3y ago
    It's not a plane though. Will be curious to see how the new one looks.
    - SV_BubbleTime 3y ago
      I’ll bet you it looks exactly like a plane. You aren’t going to get FAA clearance without aviation rated parts, and you wouldn’t make them from scratch for no reason.
  - permo-w 3y ago
    jtpda, how many dials do you need in a hot air balloon?
- woodrowbarlow 3y ago
  i believe OP's point is: the reference to the hindenburg could be seen as a cheap swipe implying that the new vehicle is destined to repeat history; however, modern aviation involves a lot more safety equipment and redundancy.
- jodrellblank 3y ago
  It was good enough to get the Graf Zeppelin to be the first vehicle to fly around the world, first vehicle to fly a million miles[1] and so on, but it comes from a time where the captain steered it with a ship's wheel, shouted down a pipe to men in the engine nacelles to adjust the engine speeds by hand, dangled a wire out below the ship to make radio contact, used audible pings to the ground below and listening for the echo delay to determine altitude, and a rope attached to a valve to let the Hydrogen out of the bags to descend, and water ballast to release to ascend. It's primitive compared to the vast improvements in air vehicle design, sensors, computers and safety technology between 1930 and today. The reference to the Hindenburg is always calling to mind the big fire. The Hindenburg was 245m long, the Graf Zeppelin was 236m long. Would it be so bad to say "Sergey Brin's airship is the biggest since the days of the Graf Zeppelin"? or "One of the biggest since the days of the giant German Zeppelins of the 1930s"? Just comparing it straight out to one of the most famous disaster photos of the last century is ... an unfair and unnecessary kick. In what other fields would we get an instant comparison to a tragedy from a hundred years ago, every single time? [1] Most of the airships of the time - British, French, American - were rubbish and broke apart or failed in various ways killing everyone onboard. How come the Graf Zeppelin was so incredibly succesful? This is like the stories of ye olde greybeards who built one incredible system in LISP in the 1970s and it has never been replicated before or since. What actually caused the Graf Zeppelin to be so anomalously good - was it Dr Hugo Eckener, was it procedures, was it something in the regulation or lack of, or government support or lack of, or some especially clever or suitable designer, or something in the manufacturing, or what?
pkulak 3y ago
I would like us to eventually get back to hydrogen though. It has more lift and isn't in limited supply. If we can drive around with 20 gallons of gasoline under our butts, we can probably figure out how to fly around with hydrogen above our heads.
- dheera 3y ago
  - Liquid gasoline ignites, but doesn't explode like a pressurized hydrogen balloon does - In the event of a fuel leak you can stop a car within seconds and evacuate, that isn't possible with a flying device Once we figure out how to do fusion power, helium won't be in limited supply anymore.
  - saalweachter 3y ago
    I feel like hydrogen should still be an option for long-range, unmanned cargo zeppelins. Don't fly over cities, and the worst (likely) case scenario is you lose a load.
    - jodrellblank 3y ago
      Why don't fly over cities? Aeroplanes fly over cities and they're full of jet fuel. Hydrogen fuelled aeroplanes can fly over cities. Airships.net has a list of Hydrogen airship fires[1] and I question how many of them could be avoided, and how many accidents that is in comparison to early aeroplane accidents of 1908-1937; Wikipedia has a very long list of aircraft accidents[2]. Some of the fires are very avoidable - cleaning the gondola with gasoline, for example. I wonder what happened with 'static from the rubber bags igniting the gas' - was there a gas leak from a tear in the bags? Through the bag material? Gas buildup inside the canopy? Oxygen leaking into the bags making an air/gas mix inside? "Torn from its temporary mooring by wind" - is that avoidable today? "suffered in-flight structural failure over the city of Hull, England and crashed into the River Humber where it ignited", "ignited when it hit high-tension electrical wires", the R101 was a bad design modified in a rush to meet a political deadline. It might be that this really is unavoidably dangerous, but the advantages of Hydrogen for its extra lifting power and affordability and renewability make me want to see some good engineers and safety officers, with today's tech and air travel safety experience, work the problem for a few years and see how safe it could become. [1] https://www.airships.net/hydrogen-airship-accidents/ https://www.airships.net/hydrogen-airship-accidents/ [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_accidents_and_incidents_involving_commercial_aircraft https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_accidents_and_incident...
pugworthy 3y ago
In the context of that sentence, the Hindenburg is mentioned as is/was the largest aircraft ever built at 245 m (804 ft) length. Pathfinder 1 is about half that at about 123 m. It is surprising how 90 some years later we aren't even close to matching the size, though clearly the technology has advanced greatly. Even with the new tech and power efficiency, the speed is still slower (60 knots vs 67 for the Hindenburg).
rozab 3y ago
That photo is of the original Graf Zeppelin from 1924, the Hindenburg's sister ship was LZ 130 Graf Zeppelin launched in 1938. I'm struggling to find a photo of the Hindenburg-class cockpit.

JumpCrisscross 3y ago

What’s wrong with that cockpit?

s_dev 3y ago
Have you seen the cockpit of modern plane? The number of controls/instruments telling you about the status of the plane for instance is a big differentiator here. That is a major safety flag -- the pilot in that cockpit knows nothing really about the ship he is steering.
- AlecSchueler 3y ago
  It's not a plane though. Will be curious to see how the new one looks.
  - SV_BubbleTime 3y ago
    I’ll bet you it looks exactly like a plane. You aren’t going to get FAA clearance without aviation rated parts, and you wouldn’t make them from scratch for no reason.
- permo-w 3y ago
  jtpda, how many dials do you need in a hot air balloon?
woodrowbarlow 3y ago
i believe OP's point is: the reference to the hindenburg could be seen as a cheap swipe implying that the new vehicle is destined to repeat history; however, modern aviation involves a lot more safety equipment and redundancy.
jodrellblank 3y ago
It was good enough to get the Graf Zeppelin to be the first vehicle to fly around the world, first vehicle to fly a million miles[1] and so on, but it comes from a time where the captain steered it with a ship's wheel, shouted down a pipe to men in the engine nacelles to adjust the engine speeds by hand, dangled a wire out below the ship to make radio contact, used audible pings to the ground below and listening for the echo delay to determine altitude, and a rope attached to a valve to let the Hydrogen out of the bags to descend, and water ballast to release to ascend. It's primitive compared to the vast improvements in air vehicle design, sensors, computers and safety technology between 1930 and today. The reference to the Hindenburg is always calling to mind the big fire. The Hindenburg was 245m long, the Graf Zeppelin was 236m long. Would it be so bad to say "Sergey Brin's airship is the biggest since the days of the Graf Zeppelin"? or "One of the biggest since the days of the giant German Zeppelins of the 1930s"? Just comparing it straight out to one of the most famous disaster photos of the last century is ... an unfair and unnecessary kick. In what other fields would we get an instant comparison to a tragedy from a hundred years ago, every single time? [1] Most of the airships of the time - British, French, American - were rubbish and broke apart or failed in various ways killing everyone onboard. How come the Graf Zeppelin was so incredibly succesful? This is like the stories of ye olde greybeards who built one incredible system in LISP in the 1970s and it has never been replicated before or since. What actually caused the Graf Zeppelin to be so anomalously good - was it Dr Hugo Eckener, was it procedures, was it something in the regulation or lack of, or government support or lack of, or some especially clever or suitable designer, or something in the manufacturing, or what?

pkulak 3y ago

I would like us to eventually get back to hydrogen though. It has more lift and isn't in limited supply. If we can drive around with 20 gallons of gasoline under our butts, we can probably figure out how to fly around with hydrogen above our heads.

dheera 3y ago
- Liquid gasoline ignites, but doesn't explode like a pressurized hydrogen balloon does - In the event of a fuel leak you can stop a car within seconds and evacuate, that isn't possible with a flying device Once we figure out how to do fusion power, helium won't be in limited supply anymore.
- saalweachter 3y ago
  I feel like hydrogen should still be an option for long-range, unmanned cargo zeppelins. Don't fly over cities, and the worst (likely) case scenario is you lose a load.
  - jodrellblank 3y ago
    Why don't fly over cities? Aeroplanes fly over cities and they're full of jet fuel. Hydrogen fuelled aeroplanes can fly over cities. Airships.net has a list of Hydrogen airship fires[1] and I question how many of them could be avoided, and how many accidents that is in comparison to early aeroplane accidents of 1908-1937; Wikipedia has a very long list of aircraft accidents[2]. Some of the fires are very avoidable - cleaning the gondola with gasoline, for example. I wonder what happened with 'static from the rubber bags igniting the gas' - was there a gas leak from a tear in the bags? Through the bag material? Gas buildup inside the canopy? Oxygen leaking into the bags making an air/gas mix inside? "Torn from its temporary mooring by wind" - is that avoidable today? "suffered in-flight structural failure over the city of Hull, England and crashed into the River Humber where it ignited", "ignited when it hit high-tension electrical wires", the R101 was a bad design modified in a rush to meet a political deadline. It might be that this really is unavoidably dangerous, but the advantages of Hydrogen for its extra lifting power and affordability and renewability make me want to see some good engineers and safety officers, with today's tech and air travel safety experience, work the problem for a few years and see how safe it could become. [1] https://www.airships.net/hydrogen-airship-accidents/ https://www.airships.net/hydrogen-airship-accidents/ [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_accidents_and_incidents_involving_commercial_aircraft https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_accidents_and_incident...

pugworthy 3y ago

In the context of that sentence, the Hindenburg is mentioned as is/was the largest aircraft ever built at 245 m (804 ft) length. Pathfinder 1 is about half that at about 123 m. It is surprising how 90 some years later we aren't even close to matching the size, though clearly the technology has advanced greatly. Even with the new tech and power efficiency, the speed is still slower (60 knots vs 67 for the Hindenburg).

rozab 3y ago

That photo is of the original Graf Zeppelin from 1924, the Hindenburg's sister ship was LZ 130 Graf Zeppelin launched in 1938. I'm struggling to find a photo of the Hindenburg-class cockpit.